The Third Thing
by Mikkeneko
Summary: Traveling the worlds in search of his lost brother, Yuui Flowright comes to Nihon and is welcomed there. But will his curse of ill luck ruin everything? Post-series, Yuui/Tomoyo. Sequel to "The Price of Ill Luck."
1. The First Thing

**Title**: The Third Thing  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: None really. Mild angst, sweetness.  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: Post-series, spoilers for the Nihon arc.

**Author's Notes**: This is a sequel to my story "The Price of Ill Luck" (also known as "The Curse of the Twins") which can be found earlier on my list of stories. It was an alt-universe, Yuui-centric story about a world where Yuui lived and Fai died, and the Wizard Flowright took to wandering the world in search of a cure for his sorrows. He met with Yuuko and learned from her that Fai still lived in other worlds, and the story ended with the strong implication that Yuui was going to travel to other worlds in search of him.

Well, then...

* * *

><p>That morning, for the first time, she directed her servants to help her dress and then to set up her chair in the grass out under the trees of the garden.<p>

"My lady?" the head maidservant asked, puzzled by the change in routine.

Tomoyo smiled at her. "It is such a fine day out, don't you think? The sun and clouds are beautiful, and yet the breezes keep it cool. It is too splendid a day to spend inside."

The maidservant bobbed, looking slightly flustered and uncertain; it was a flimsy excuse to move the entire cumbersome setting of the throne room outside, and Tomoyo was not usually prone to the eccentric vagaries common to noblemen and royalty. Still, she hurried out to carry out the Princess's request.

Tomoyo smiled after her. It was indeed a fine day, but that had not been the reason for her request. She was expecting a visitor that afternoon, although she hadn't wanted to say so until she knew more.

Although Tomoyo had given her dreamseer powers away years ago - part of a price to bring her favorite ninja safely home - that did not mean she was powerless. Far from it. The gift of true future vision was rare, but there was always a Tsukuyomi; indeed, it was only a lucky coincidence to have both a true seer and the country's primary star-reader in the same body.

As the Tsukuyomi, Tomoyo had access to the augury and divination charts that came with the office, and the power to read the fates in the movement of the stars. It was not an entirely accurate power - she had often relied on her dream visions to provide clarity to the fortunes she read - but it was more reliable, and more flexible, in that she could ask questions instead of merely relying on what visions Fate would bring her.

Today, the stars told her, she would be entertaining a guest; a visitor from another world.

She was not entirely sure what to expect. There were the travelers, of course - Kurogane and Fai and their young ward - but although she spoke with them occasionally there had been no indication yet that they were ready to return. Aside from those three, she wasn't sure who else it could be; the Witch of Dimensions had passed away years ago, and her successor did not travel the worlds.

The weather on that spring morning was indeed fine, and Tomoyo passed a very pleasant morning conducting court in the sunlight, in the shade of the little pavilion. Towards noon, Amaterasu herself appeared, perhaps intrigued by the rumors among the servants.

"What are you doing out here, sister?" the empress asked, never bothering much to beat around the bush.

Tomoyo smiled back at Kendappa. Although their stations at the court took up much of their time, and their very different roles had driven some distance between them, there was always much fondness between the two royal siblings. To her, at least, Tomoyo was honest; "I am waiting for our guest, dear sister," she said.

Kendappa looked surprised. "What guest?" she said. "There are no appointments for today."

Tomoyo nodded. "This is a visitor who comes from another world," she said.

"Eh?" Kendappa's surprise turned to wariness. "What, are Kurogane and his band returning already? I thought we'd have at least a few more years of peace before that big lunk came back."

Tomoyo had to smile at Kendappa's description of the ninja; although Kurogane had technically been Amaterasu's servant, as a vassal of Nihon, he'd never made any secret to the fact that he obeyed only Tomoyo - and he didn't even always obey her. His disrespect for authority and Kendappa's own hot temper had led the two of them to clash many times; although each respected the other's abilities, they were far too alike to ever become friends.

"No, it is not them," she answered.

"Who, then?"

Tomoyo used her fan to point towards a broad, grassy stretch of the palace gardens, where a shimmering whorl was beginning to appear in the air. "We shall see," she said.

The shimmering patch of air expanded into a miniature whirlwind, strong enough to distort the sight of the palace beyond it - although not a blade of grass was disturbed. What had originally seemed like a flat spiral, hanging horizontally in the air, seemed to deepen into a space that hadn't been there before, until it seemed like a tunnel that led off into nowhere.

A curious crowd was beginning to gather; those who had wondered at the Tsukuyomi's strange actions now thought they understood. Since Tomoyo did not appear worried, surely there was no danger. Gradually a figure appeared in the depth of the anomaly; as it grew nearer and larger, the strange shape resolved into a person on horseback. Muffled hoofbeats became audible, then clearer and louder, until at last the horse itself trotted out of the magical whirlwind onto the trimmed grass of the palace lawn.

The horse was a fine beast, so pale gray it was almost silver in the light; its bridle and trappings were indeed silver, and it was bundled with a pair of finely embroidered saddlebags hanging from the back of the dark leather saddle. Its rider was dressed in clothes equally fine, gray and white cloth surprisingly unsullied by travel stains. Pale-skinned hands held the reins in a loose grip, and the blond-haired, blue-eyed man stared around at the assembly, looking somewhat aback to have such an audience.

"It's that blond magician!" Kendappa exclaimed in surprise. "What was his name, Fai. But where are Kurogane and the others?"

"Wait," Tomoyo told her, and then raised her voice to the stranger. "Greetings and welcome to Shirasagi palace, traveler from a distant world," she said. "Might I know your name?"

The horseman turned his mount to face her and opened his mouth, then coughed twice and raised a gloved fist. Tomoyo felt the tingle of magic, and saw a white glow appear from the man's fingertips and disappear into his throat. "Greetings and salutations to you, fair ladies," he said, pitching his voice to be heard across the green. A translation spell, Tomoyo realized, and was impressed; it took skill to calibrate one so fast and so well. But then, he must be a master mage or he could not have crossed dimensions to come here at all. "My name is Yuui Flowright, and I am - just passing through. Might I have leave to rest here for a few days, until my magic recovers enough strength to continue?"

Tomoyo's eyebrows lifted despite herself at hearing the name. She'd had visions - back when she still had visions - of the blue-eyed twins of Valeria, although she had never heard their names. This demanded an explanation. "Certainly, Wizard Flowright," she responded. "You are invited to share my hospitality for as many nights as you need it."

The wizard smiled - it was like, and yet unlike, the smile she'd seen on the face of Fai Fluorite in the short time he'd spent here. "I thank you," he said, and swung off his horse with a practiced step.

"Servants, attend our guest," Amaterasu ordered crisply, and a few startled palace servants moved forward.

Yuui pulled off his saddlebags and slung them over his own shoulders. As the palace groom approached warily and reached to take his obedient horse's reins, Yuui pulled them away with a smile. "There's no need for that," he said.

To everyone's astonishment, as they watched the horse suddenly attenuated, shrinking to a mere flattened shadow of itself; then it dwindled and shrunk further away until it had disappeared into an unremarkable lump in the grass, which Yuui bent down and retrieved to his pocket. Amaterasu's expression was a study, and Yuui laughed. "Well, I could hardly take a real horse world-walking with me, now could I?" he asked with a smile.

"Indeed," Tomoyo said, recovering a moment faster than her sister. "Wizard Flowright, please come and join us. It is about time for lunch to be served, and I think we have much to talk about."

* * *

><p>They passed a very pleasant lunch, Yuui conversing with his new hosts in the cool shade of the outdoor pavilion. Some worlds he had passed through were more welcoming than others, but this was an unexpectedly kindly reception. He was beginning to suspect that Princess Tomoyo, as she had introduced herself, knew more than she had let on; certainly she carried an air of mystery, a great font of wisdom concealed behind her serene smile.<p>

His translation spell improved the more he heard and the more he spoke, and before lunch was over he was nearly fluent in the native tongue. Combined with a pleasant smile and a friendly manner, this was all he usually needed to do to win himself a welcome. The tall woman in the elaborate gown turned out to be the local queen, and the long-haired girl with the violet eyes her younger sister. August company indeed, but this was hardly the first time Yuui had found himself dining with royalty.

Polite inquiries as to whether they required any small magical services returned an equally polite refusal; they all seemed to set much esteem by the abilities of their High Priestess - none other than the beautiful girl who'd first welcomed him. He gave her a startled look, reassessing her abilities; she smiled back at him, revealing nothing.

"Tell me, Wizard Flowright, for what reason do you travel the worlds?" Princess Tomoyo asked him politely. "You are obviously quite a learned man already; do you simply wish to gather more knowledge, or are you searching for something in particular?"

"Three things, actually," Yuui said pleasantly.

"Oh?" Tomoyo inquired, turning her large, luminous violet eyes his way. "And what three things are those?"

He merely smiled at her. She was a pleasant host, but there were some things that he didn't speak of with strangers.

True to her word, later that evening Princess Tomoyo led him inside the large, rambling wood-and-paper buildings to a guest chamber, located off a small internal garden. Yuui was nearly stumbling with exhaustion; moving himself between worlds was an effort that knocked him out for nearly a week.

"I will have some clothes made for you in the style of our country," Tomoyo said to him quietly, as they stood in the corridor outside the guest rooms. "For tonight, please accept the loan of a _yukata_ suitable for sleeping in this weather."

Yuui shook his head. "There is no need to trouble anyone for clothing," he said. He raised his hands crosswise to the shoulders of his tunic, expending a tiny bit of magic to activate the spell woven into the threads of the seams. Concentrating on the image of the clothes he'd seen the others of this country wear, he brought his hands sweeping down across his sleeves and chest, and the cloth rippled and changed as he did so.

When he was finished, he appeared to be dressed in the same style as the other men of Nihon, and he smiled pleasantly at his hostess. "See? No trouble at all," he told her.

Tomoyo was smiling as well, but there was a hint of expression in her eyes that looked like pity. "But that's all an illusion, isn't it?" she asked him gently. "It's only on the surface."

"Is that a problem?" Yuui asked, confused; was this some sort of cultural taboo?

She shook her head and reached out to touch his arm; the illusion curled away from her fingers slightly, revealing the plain fabric beneath. "You travel from world to world," she remarked quietly. "You change your clothing, you change your mount, you even change your language to fit in. But it's all an illusion; the one thing you're never willing to change is yourself."

She stepped away, leaving him at a loss for words. "Your new clothing will be ready for you tomorrow," she said quietly. "Please wear them. I enjoy designing new outfits. It would be my pleasure to have clothes tailored specifically for you."

With a swish of her silk robes, she turned and walked away down the corridor, leaving Yuui standing before the door to his room, bereft.

* * *

><p>Tomoyo gave her new guest a day to rest in the hospitality of Shirasagi castle before she invited him for an audience. He arrived smiling and well-rested, wearing the garments that she had ordered made for his use, and Tomoyo took that as a good sign; perhaps he would be receptive to what she had to say after all.<p>

The garments flattered him, she observed, watching him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. She'd designed them with his foreign coloring in mind - the bright blond of his hair, the red tint underlying his white skin - and she was pleased with the finished picture he presented. He was taller than most men of Nihon, but just as skinny, and the elegance in his carriage made her think of a swan gliding gracefully through a fen. Overall he was very little like the men she was used to seeing in Nihon, but he was a fine, handsome man all the same.

"Please, sit," she said, indicating the cushion laid out before the low table. He did so, holding his legs somewhat awkwardly under him, and she slid a dish of red bean pastries across towards him.

He took a breath and reached for the set of lacquered chopsticks that had been set out for him, but it quickly became evident that he was not proficient with them. He fumbled and dropped one of the sticks on his first attempt to pick up a dumpling, and his pale skin blushed a bright pink with chagrin. Tomoyo couldn't stop herself from laughing, although she quickly hid it behind her sleeve; he smiled sheepishly, and she found herself unexpectedly charmed by his endearing clumsiness.

"Wizard Flowright, please feel free to eat with your fingers," she encouraged him. "There is no one here but me and you."

"Thank you, but I will persevere," he said, and gave her a wry smile. "After all, it is as you said; I need to do more than merely adopt the surface illusion of any new world."

He picked up the chopsticks and tried again, making a slightly better go of it this time; Tomoyo nodded in encouragement, and reached to pour the tea. He watched her with interest as he did so, and smiled when he took the teacup from her hands.

"Did you make this yourself?" he said. "If so, I am honored."

She smiled back. "No matter how high or low their station, all gentle women of Nihon are expected to know the basic arts of civilization," she said. "Tea-making, cooking, calligraphy, song and dance… and story-telling."

"Do you have a story to tell me, then?" he asked with interest.

"I do." She poured herself a cup of tea, and sat on the other side of the table from him. She hadn't been sure at first how to broach the subject with him; if she was right in her guesses, it would no doubt be a painful one.

"About five years ago, I had a beloved retainer," she began. "His name was Kurogane, and he was one of the best ninja we had; certainly he caused the most trouble. If you stay here for very long, you will probably hear his name spoken with remembered awe… or fear."

"Fear?" Yuui raised an eyebrow, inviting explanation. Tomoyo had to smile a bit in rueful memory.

"He was strong and skilled. But he was not very obedient," she explained. "And for a warrior that strong… to lack self-control, he becomes a danger to himself and to all those around him.

"And so, following the visions that came to me in my dreams," Tomoyo continued, "I sent him away - not to another country, but to another world."

Yuui drew in a sharp breath of surprise. "I was not aware that you had the power of world-walking," he said, looking at her with new appreciation. "But… once you had transported him, he would be out of reach and stranded, surely…?"

"I sent him to the Witch of Dimensions," Tomoyo explained, and understanding dawned on Yuui's face as he nodded. Tomoyo felt an unexpected warm glow at his instant comprehension of what she meant and why; there were so few people in Nihon who shared her half-in, half-out view of the world of magic and spirits. "From there, she provided him with the means to journey between the worlds.

"During the course of the journey, he met many people, and acquired some fast companions," she went on. "When he returned here - two years after he departed, although I suspect less time had passed for him - I had a chance to meet one of them."

She paused, studying Yuui's face. He held an expression of polite attention, clearly interested in her story but not having any idea where she was going with it. She continued.

"He was a man who looked much like you - save that he was missing one eye, I would say he was identical to you," she continued. "He called himself Fai, although I knew, even then, that was not the name to which he had been born.

"Tell me, Yuui Flowright, were you too born a prince? Tell me, did you too once have a twin brother?"

The cup of tea tumbled from Yuui's nerveless hands, and his face drained to a pale grey as he grabbed the edge of the table, leaning his weight on it as though he would collapse without the support. "Is he here?" he asked hoarsely. "You said - is he here _now?"_

"He is not," Tomoyo said quietly, hating to cause him grief but not wishing to stretch out his moment of agony. "He left, together with my retainer and their young ward, for a further journey of the worlds."

A soft groan escaped Yuui, and this time he did collapse, as though his bones were no longer strong enough to hold him. "The first time," he whispered, his voice shaking like his hands. "The first time in any world…"

"Do not despair," Tomoyo told him, making her voice as strong and reassuring as possible. "Although they travel the worlds now, I do not think they mean to travel forever. And when their journey does come to an end, I have faith that they will return here… both my retainer and your brother. For I do not think that he has any world of his own to go back to."

Yuui's breath stopped, and he raised his head; his blue eyes were softly glowing as though a light were shining behind them. "Returning here," he breathed out. "He'll be coming _here. _How many years…? Time passes differently when you are traveling, I know, but…"

"I do not know how long you would have to wait," Tomoyo admitted. "But you are welcome to stay here for as long as it takes for your brother to return. After all, was that not the first thing that you were searching for?"

She stretched her hands across the table and captured his; larger and paler than hers, but fine and delicate, with the blue veins showing through the skin on the backs. "And I promise you, you will not need to wait alone," she said firmly.

* * *

><p>~to be continued...<p> 


	2. The Second Thing

**Title**: The Third Thing  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: None really. Mild angst, sweetness.  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: Post-series, spoilers for the Nihon arc.

**Author's Notes**: At the end of The Curse of the Twins, Yuuko suggested to Yuui that he might be able to fight off his curse with the help of someone who loved him. A number of people wished in the comments that he would be able to find someone to make him happy, but for a long time I simply didn't know who. Yuui/Syaoron (popular in Holitsuba) just never appealed to me, and having him meet an alternate version of Kurogane and fall in love just seemed cheap to me. Instead, I wondered, how strange would it be if somewhere, one of the versions of Yuui/Fai was actually _not gay?_

* * *

><p>And so Yuui stayed in Shirasagi castle as the seasons progressed, as the days grew longer and peaked and began to wane. The fine, warm weather turned muggy and hot, the sun shining hazily in a brass sky overhead as the plants drooped and faltered.<p>

As weeks turned to months, Yuui became increasingly antsy. Normally he never stayed in one place for more than four weeks, a time limit he'd worked out by careful trial and error. One week was the absolute minimum it took him to recover his strength enough to do another world jump; three was about the maximum before his curse of ill luck started to take effect.

The Witch of Many Worlds had told him that the miasma of ill luck was not a curse, in the sense of a spell of ill intent placed on him by an enemy; rather, it was a manifestation of his own magical power, carrying out the self-destructive wishes of his unconscious mind. Perhaps she had meant the explanation to help him, but for Yuui, it only furthered his feelings of helplessness and frustration. How could he escape the curse when he knew he carried it inside of him? How could he free himself of the guilt and self-loathing that poisoned him when he knew for a stated fact that the suffering occurring around him was his fault, and his alone?

The clothes that Princess Tomoyo had made for him so kindly suffered the first effects; although he continued to care for them as mindfully as in the first days, not a day could go by without him tearing the sleeve of a kimono, or spilling some stain upon the silk, or breaking the cord of his _geta _sandals, or splintering another set of chopsticks. The residents of Shirasagi smiled tolerantly at his foreign clumsiness, but every minor incident only added to Yuui's bleak depression; he knew he was not being careless.

Summer brought horseflies to the shaded gardens of Nihon, ugly black and red biting things that irritated the courtiers and maddened the horses. They were worse than usual this year, Yuui heard one courtier comment. Less rain fell than usual, and the ponds sank low in their stone confines, the surface crusting over with thick algae.

On the last day of the seventh month Yuui unexpectedly stumbled and fell down the main staircase from the front gates; people ran to help him but he waved them off, smiling and laughing to conceal the pain in his arm and the tight anxiety knotted in his stomach. The palace physician diagnosed a fractured wrist, wrapped it securely, and warned him to be more careful; Yuui smiled and thanked him.

In the weeks that followed not a day went by without Yuui hearing the echoing crash of some pottery breaking or wood splintering. On the night of the new moon a fire caught in the southern wing of the palace, leaping up from some careless cook's failure to cover a pan of hot oil properly. They were able to evacuate the people in time, and beat the fire out before it spread to the rest of the complex; but the whole southern wing was ruined, and a heavy pall of smoke and soot hung over the rest of the palace.

It was then Yuui knew that he had to go, brother or no brother. No one had died - yet. He had to leave before that changed.

He should at least say farewell to his hostess first, explain himself, and apologize. Misery was a tight knot in Yuui's throat as he made his way to her quarters, through the palace corridors that had become all too familiar to him over the past few months. At last, after so many years of searching, he had found a lead that might bring him to Fai - only to lose it again. The depressed resignation over his own helplessness was underscored by a further terror: even if he truly found his brother again, would he even be able to stay with him?

"Come in, Yuui-san," the Princess' gentle voice called from the chamber beyond; Yuui flushed with embarrassment as he realized he'd been hovering outside her door like a spy for almost ten minutes.

Sheepishly, he slid the door aside and came inside. Tomoyo was sitting in the window seat overlooking the garden; her hair was down and she was dressed in a less formal version of her ceremonial robes. She had a gold-spattered fan in her hand which she was waving slowly, strands of her hair fluttering in the light breeze. One of her little maids sat nearby, embroidering a wide panel of silk. "What is it, Yuui-san?" she greeted him, then smiled her usual gentle smile. "Have you torn another seam that needs to be repaired? I'm beginning to think you do it just to have a reason to come see me."

She meant it as light teasing, but Yuui flinched all the same. "No. That's not why," he said. He bowed formally, lowering his eyes to the rush floor. "Princess, I am sorry, but I must beg leave of your hospitality now. It is time for me to depart."

The fan stilled, and Yuui straightened up in time to see a look of dismay flit over Tomoyo's face before she suppressed it. She took a slightly shaky breath. "Of course, you are a free guest, and I cannot hold you here," she said. "But why? I thought that seeing your brother - Fai - was one of the three things that you sought. It has only been a few months since your arrival. He will come back, I promise."

"I do want to see him. It was - I wanted to -" He was getting hopelessly tangled in his explanation, hope and longing and regret clogging his tongue. He took a breath, and started over. "Princess, I'm afraid I have not been entirely honest with you," he said forlornly.

Tomoyo said nothing, but she gestured to a low cushioned seat on the other side of the window. Yuui sat down, for some reason thinking back on the strange interview years ago he'd had with the Witch of Many Worlds which had started his fantastic world-traveling journey. The Witch had already known about him - she'd known most of his life's history before he ever showed up at her cave. Where to start?

"I am under a curse," he began, "a curse that has followed me from my childhood onwards, to every world I've traveled in an effort to escape it. The curse is one of ill luck - not just for me, I wouldn't mind so much if it were just me, but for everyone around me. What begins as small mishaps - a torn sleeve, a dropped dish, a spell of bad weather - soon escalates into life-threatening catastrophes. I have only been here for a few months but already the troubles are starting."

"I would not have said our troubles were particularly severe," Tomoyo said, sounding somewhat surprised. "In a city of wooden houses, fires are a common hazard. And the weather, while perhaps unpleasant, is well within normal range for this time of the year."

Yuui shook his head firmly. "That fire was no accident, Princess," he said. "Six weeks is the longest I have ever been able to safely stay in one place without major disasters beginning to happen around me. It will only get worse the longer I remain. I've seen ships sink in calm seas, stone buildings collapse, houses burn down in the pouring rain and lightning strike out a clear sky. It is unmistakable."

He glanced at Tomoyo's maid, then away. She was with child, although it was possible even she did not know it yet; to a sensitive magician, the new life showed. In past times when he had been stuck in one place and unable to move on in a reasonable period of time, he had seen far too many sorrows overcoming what should have been such a joy: miscarriages, stillbirths, live births that should not have been. He could not bear to see that happen again. "Even in so short a time I have become fond of this world, Princess, and of you; that is why I must leave."

Tomoyo set down her fan and abandoned her casual posture, sitting with her back straight and her hands in her lap. "You should have told me this much earlier," she said sternly, her mouth set into a grim line.

"I know. I'm sorry," he said humbly. "I hoped - I hoped it would be different this time."

"It certainly could have been," Tomoyo said crisply. "Do you not understand who I am? As the Tsukuyomi, the one who reads the darkness of the night and guides my people among the paths of the stars, curses of ill luck are most certainly within my sphere of control! How do you expect me to do anything to counter your curse if you do not even tell me it exists?"

Yuui's mouth hung open and he blinked in astonishment; he'd never heard the gentle priestess with such an edge of steel in her voice. He coughed and tried to speak again. "Well - I didn't think you could - do anything about it," he protested. "I even took my case to plead before the Witch of the Worlds to beg for a solution, and she could not help me." Except, he thought, to advise him to find someone to love him. He'd been searching the dimensions for his lost brother ever since, in hopes of doing just that; but it was a bit of a Zeno's paradox when he was forced to move on from every place in such a short period of time.

Tomoyo's dark eyebrows flew up. "Yuuko could not do anything to help you?" she said. Yuui had already known that Tomoyo knew of the witch; it was a surprise, however, to hear that they were on a first-name basis. "Would not, or could not?"

"Could - could not," Yuui said hesitantly. The curse, according to her rather unsatisfactory explanation, was Yuui's own old guilt and self-loathing rather than any true malediction. "She told me - she told me that it was born of my own magic, working against me."

"I see," Tomoyo said, and her voice was calm and under control again. "If she could not remove the curse, then it's unlikely that I will be able to either. However, that does not mean that there is nothing I can do to alleviate its effects. I have a considerable amount of power on my own, Wizard Flowright, and the knowledge to ward against many forms of ill luck. Perhaps we can counter the symptoms, at least, long enough to search for a true cure."

"But - I couldn't," Yuui protested. "You said it yourself, your magic is for the sake of protecting and guiding your own people."

"As it always has been," Tomoyo said softly. "But the two need not be mutually exclusive. After all, if you mean to live here long enough to reunite with your brother, then you will also be one of my people, and deserving of my protection."

Tears flooded Yuui's eyes, taking him by surprise, and he blinked rapidly to try to get himself under control. "I... thank you, Princess," he whispered, not daring more volume than that.

"Come on," Tomoyo said briskly, rising to her feet and gathering the sleeves of her robe. Her maid quickly jumped up behind her, prepared to carry the train and keep it out of the dust. "There are still plenty of hours left in the day, and I have no other ceremonies to attend to. Let us retire to the great shrine and see what can be done about your ill luck."

* * *

><p>The next week was a time of wildly mixed emotions for Yuui, wild hope veering into crushing disappointment and then rising again. The ritual of blessing Tomoyo performed for him did seem to help, at least in the short term; all that night and the next day, the falls and fumbles and breakages ceased. For one night Yuui slept peacefully, untroubled.<p>

By the fourth day, however, the familiar symptoms of ill luck were beginning to creep back, and Yuui's optimism began to wane as it appeared that Tomoyo's magic could only afford a temporary fix. Again she performed a blessing on him, and again the troubles ceased; but they began to return ever faster, buying him only one day of peace.

"It is as if there is some force which resists me," Tomoyo said on the third attempt to counter his curse. She had experimented with several different approaches - both generalized good fortune and stronger spells of protection, but they all seemed to be equally effective, or ineffective. "The stronger I attempt to make my binding, the harder it pushes back against me."

Despite her frustration, there was a light in Tomoyo's eyes, a tone of professional interest in her voice; she seemed to view Yuui's curse as a challenge to be overcome rather than a bane. Yuui himself was more pessimistic; he'd tried dosing himself with many various 'cures' in his youth, and it had only ever come to naught in the end.

The struggle of great magics seemed to be reflected in the weather; the shimmering haze of heat spiked, then broke with the approach of a great thunderstorm. The residents of the castle could see it coming from miles across the grass plains, and despite the ominous grey darkness smudging the air beneath it, most of Shirasagi's residents viewed its coming as a relief against the heat.

When the storm arrived, it brought a torrential downpour. The sound of the rain on the roofs almost drowned out the thunder, and calls of consternation rose from all over the castle as the rain found its way through leaks and holes never previously noticed.

Worse, the ground was shrunken and hard from the weeks of drought and heat. The water quickly filled the ponds and streams and, rather than being absorbed into the ground, formed flash floods that overran every gutter and turned the streets into rivers.

Yuui sat on the edge of the verandah outside of his room, heedless of the sheets of rain that the wind blew over him. He should go, he knew. He should never have let Tomoyo persuade him to stay - she didn't understand the magnitude, or the implacability of his curse. It was irresponsible to let himself be persuaded; irresponsible and weak. He'd let his own petty desires rule over the good of others, and now -

A slithering crash and a female shriek sounded from somewhere in the castle - Yuui's heart began to pound when he realized it was the direction of Tomoyo's rooms. He gathered his soaking kimono up and galloped through the corridor in the direction, heart in his mouth.

The ceiling had caved out in the corridor, termite-chewed wood giving way under the weight of water. No one had been hurt, but a dozen people were on their knees picking up splinters while half a dozen men with ladders tried frantically to patch the hole in the roof. Tomoyo was standing nearby, and her eyes widened as she saw Yuui.

"Wizard Flowright!" she called out, and came over to grab his arm. She had to shout to make herself heard over the noise of the rain coming through the roof. "Go down to the footpath near the castle gates, and follow it along the hill until it comes to the bridge. The dam overlooking the east district of Edo has needed repair for years - it won't hold up to this much rain. Do what you can to keep the floodwater back until all the townspeople can evacuate!"

She spoke with commanding authority; Yuui was inescapably reminded that she was the sister of the Empress. "Yes, Your Highness," he said; all thoughts of leaving had fled. He took a step back and bowed, then turned and strode off into the rain, ignoring the water soaking into his clothes.

It had not been hard to find the dam she meant - the river building up behind it was roaring with a sound louder than the thunder. Miraculously, the dam still held, although water spurted through half a dozen holes or over notches gouged into the top. Yuui climbed out onto the top of the dam and felt, under his feet, the creaking and shifting of earth and masonry under the enormous pressure of the flood.

He realized at once that the problem was even worse than the Princess had said. The river snaking down towards the city had long since overrun its banks; it had joined with another channel, and expanded to suck in a deep but narrow lake. The resulting torrent which strained against the cracking dam, once it was released, would crash down not only over the city but into the palace itself.

This would have been easier if he'd known to come out here before today; he could have set wards to reinforce the structure far beyond its outwards flimsy appearance. As it was, it was simply a question of sheer brute force: thrusting his magic deep into the earth around and under the lake, fighting back against the pressure of the water. Blue light blossomed around him, an eerie contrast to the lightning that flickered and danced in the clouds above; muttered incantations of power rolled ceaselessly from his lips, unheard in the din.

The rain was not cold, but the gusts of wind traveling over the lake slammed against him until his limbs were leaden and his body was numb. In the struggle against wind and water he almost lost sight of his body completely, all his attention focused on the fierce storm overheard and the furious, crushing pressure of the flooding lake against the dam.

It was too much for any man - even a wizard. Water sheeted over the dam to join the floods in the city streets, but the sheer crushing weight of the lake would overwhelm him and then the dam. He should just give up, let it go, use what magic remained to him to fly to safely; or, better yet, transport himself out of this world and leave it behind forever.

_No!_ a part of him rebelled, and he dug his magic in grimly. He would not yield. The princess had bade him to hold this dam and he would, no matter what the sky threw at him - no matter what his curse of ill luck threw at him. All his life he'd been shoved and beaten and pushed around, by his family and by his curse and by his ill fate and he'd gone along with it as passively as a leaf carried along by a river, accepting exile and defeat with barely a struggle. Everything that he had ever loved had been taken from him. No more! Here he had been welcomed, he had found acceptance, he had found peace and he had found hope for the first time in decades. By all that was holy, this was his home and _here he would hold!_

He lost track of how long he'd stood there, bracing his body, mind and soul against the shrieking power of the storm and the crushing pressure of the floodwaters that he strove to hold back. Even when the world went black around him and the roar of water finally dimmed, he clutched obsessively to the spell-threads he had sent down to strengthen the dam. He would not fail! He would not...

* * *

><p>Yuui woke to the feel of sunlight on his face. Without opening his eyes he knew that he was back in his guest quarters in Shirasagi Castle, tucked into his bedding with a cool heavy compress on his forehead. Which was all comfortable and good, except that every inch of his body felt as though it had been beaten by sticks, and he was as weak as a newborn kitten. He barely managed to open his eyes enough to squint a blurry view of the sunbeams piercing the room, let out a breath that was half a moan, and let them fall closed again.<p>

"Shhh. Lie still," someone commanded him from nearby. It was not Tomoyo, but one of her ladies - Yuui recognized her voice from visits to Tomoyo's quarters, but couldn't place a name. Gentle hands smoothed the sheet around him, and briskly began to change the compress out for a fresh one. "All is well. The storm has passed."

"The -" Yuui's voice clogged in his throat, but he could not muster the strength to cough. "Dam? Safe?" he managed to whisper.

"Yes, safe." The woman's voice took on a slight tinge of awe. "They found you on the top of the dam, which had been turned into solid stone twenty yards deep into the ground. The castle and the town are safe, and the floodwaters have gone down."

Like the floodwaters, Yuui could feel that his own magic had dropped almost to nothing - he was as drained and weak as right after making a world-jump, and he would be for the next week. Despite that, however, a feeling of great peace pervaded his body, and he found himself drifting back to sleep.

He hadn't failed. Even if the danger had been brought on by his own curse, his magic had been of use for once; he had protected them.

* * *

><p>The next week was a busy one for Tomoyo. She had many pressing duties of her own to attend to - recovery and repair from the storm as well as a sudden spate of ceremonial obligations attending the break of summer - but she made an effort to drop by at least once or twice a day to visit the wizard in his convalescence.<p>

"Yuui-san," she said after one week, "how are you feeling?"

"Much better today, thank you," he said, smiling back at her. He was sitting up on his futon against a padded board with a book of _kanji_ in his lap, and a fair view of the garden beyond his door. Despite the destruction the storm had brought, Shirasagi was rebuilding; torn foliage grew back with bright leaves and flowers, and freshly-sanded new wood filled in the gaps of the fences and roofs.

"I am glad to hear that." Tomoyo adjusted her sleeves, settling back a bit on the cushion. She had not come by today for a simple chat. "I hoped you would feel strong enough to discuss a certain matter."

"What is that?" Yuui asked cautiously.

"Your curse," Tomoyo said bluntly, and she watched his smile dim and his eyes drop. "Yuui-san, you may not have been in a state to notice it, but for the last week there has hardly been a mishap around the castle."

"Really?" he asked with some astonishment. His bright blue eyes blinked rapidly. "Pardon me, Princess, but I… don't see how that can be."

"Neither can I," Tomoyo said, "but I have some ideas. Wizard Flowright, when you first told me of your curse, you said that it does not normally start to manifest in a new world for some time - that you see a grace period, so to speak, each time you change worlds."

"Um… yes," Yuui said after a moment's thought. "I can usually expect at least a week, perhaps two, before bad things start to happen in my vicinity. After that, however, they escalate steadily, both in range and in magnitude. It's after the first month that things really start to get bad... as you've seen."

"And you also said, when you first came to this world," Tomoyo reminded him; "that traveling between worlds was a great and exhausting work of magic for you, and that you cannot perform another such great feat again right away."

"Yes, that's also true," Yuui answered. "By the middle of the second week I usually have enough strength to jump again. I don't normally stay in any world longer than a month."

"And after expending all your magic on holding back the flood, once again you are drained and weak, and there has not been any evidence of ill luck for seven days," she prodded him.

"Er… yes?" Yuui's tone was willing, but bewildered. He honestly did not see the connection. Tomoyo sighed, and laid it out for him in plain terms.

"Yuui-san, I believe that your curse is linked to your magic much more directly than you previously thought," she said. "You have powerful magic; I felt it when you first crossed into this world, and I watched as it steadily increased in force until being in the same room with you was like standing in the eye of a hurricane. When you do not use it, your magic begins to spill out like a vessel overflowing with water, warping the world around you in unpredictable and unlikely ways.

"Traveling worlds, which only the strongest of magicians can do - let alone do on a regular basis! - drains away your magic for a time. Your miracle when you saved the city from the storm -" Tomoyo saw him flush a faint pink at the praise, and had to hide her own smile, " - had a similar effect. Right now when I look at you, you seem contained, at peace. The waters have not risen high enough to press against the dam, not yet. But they are rising again."

She stopped a moment to consider the effect her words were having on the blond wizard. He looked faintly stunned, as though she had whacked him upside the head with a board. "But - the Witch of the Worlds said -" he began, then stopped.

"What did she say?" Tomoyo prompted him.

Yuui closed his eyes, looking fragile and exhausted, and Tomoyo felt a strange surge of motherly concern - no, she corrected herself, not _motherly._ An urge to embrace him gently and kiss his forehead, and reassure him that he was not the blight he thought himself to be. "She said that - my brother and I -" he said in a low mumble, and Tomoyo got the impression that he had not meant to say this aloud. "That the two of us together had too much power - and that is why one of us had to die. Why one of us always must die."

For a moment Tomoyo was certain that he would weep, and then she worried that he did not. For all the heartbreak in his voice there were no tears; it was an old, dried-up kind of sadness that allowed no rain to fall, no healing growth to take place. When he opened his eyes and looked up at her again, his beautiful blue eyes were as dark as old wells. "Because together, we had enough magic to crack the world apart."

"Well," Tomoyo said after a long moment of silence, making her voice deliberately light to get past the moment, "then we must certainly put our heads together and think of some physic that will cure this ill. Because your brother is due to return here sooner or later - and I like this world, and would rather not see it crack apart."

Yuui breathed out a light laugh, and Tomoyo's heart eased as she saw him straighten up from his hunch, the sadness retreating a little from his eyes. It could not be fully erased, but she could help push it back for another day. "Well then, oh wise doctor," he said in a dry tone to match hers. "What medicine would you apply?"

"As to that, I actually have something that I believe will serve." Although she maintained the airy tone, her throat was a bit dry and her palms slightly damp as she reached up and beckoned her lady-in-waiting over, and murmured shortly into her ear. The maid nodded, bowed and hurried off, and Tomoyo readjusted her robes about her and looked at Fai more seriously.

"Years ago, in another kingdom, there was a king who also had a very powerful court wizard," she began, telling the story like a fairytale. "For his own reasons - and though he was a complex man, in his heart he meant well - he wanted to curb the magic of his wizard, so that his power would not become too great. The king was skilled and wise in magics of his own, and so he devised a marking - a tattoo which covered the wizard's back, which would wrap around him and limit his strength."

"He must have been a learned magician indeed to accomplish something like that," Yuui remarked. "I should like to visit this kingdom sometime."

Tomoyo shook her head. "Alas, he has passed on," she said regretfully, "and his kingdom passed with him. But the marking - a rare and powerful item - came into the hands of the Witch of Many Worlds, and from there passed to her successor."

Yuui seemed to be undergoing a struggle or debate with himself; hope battled with anxiety on his delicate features, in the tension of his shoulders and bunching of his fists. But then a calm passed over him like a cloud over the sun, and he looked her clear in the eyes. "Princess, I would do anything to be free of my curse, and to be able to stay here without harming this land," he said in a quiet but firm voice. "I am not afraid of a little pain. If it's you who holds the needle, I won't mind."

Tomoyo was temporarily taken aback, and then a chuckle burst out of her before she could stop herself. "Forgive me," she said with a gasp. "I did not mean to mislead you. It is not necessary to recreate the tattoo. Such markings have a life of their own, you know, and this one came to me from the Witch of Dimensions alive and whole."

At last the maid arrived with the box; it was long and wide, but flat, and the wood of the lid had elegant kanji of holding and protection burned into the wood. She took it in her lap and held it there for a moment, feeling the thrum of magic emanate up from the wood. "I believe that this can help you," she said quietly.

Yuui was shaking his head, a look of doubt on his face. "No, this won't work," he said. "You were right when you said that markings of power have a life of their own. If this was created by this king for a specific man, then it can't simply be passed around like a spare kimono."

"Not under normal circumstances, no," Tomoyo agreed easily. She glanced downward, and folded back the lid of the box. The marking of the phoenix glowed within, the black lines of the tattoo standing out with an unseen light of their own. She dipped her hands in the box, and urged a little power out of her own fingertips to lift the marking free. It slithered over her hands like the finest silk, her skin tingling where it touched, as she lifted it into the air. "But this marking will accept you, I think. You see, the King who created it was King Ashura of Ceres; and the wizard at his court was your brother, Fai Flowright."

A small noise escaped Yuui, and when she looked up at him once again she saw his features transformed by the same pain and longing as when she had first revealed to him that his brother would be coming back to this world.

Yuui didn't speak - it didn't look like he could. He blinked back blue eyes full of tears, and Tomoyo decided to act on his prior assent. She rose and paced around behind him, the marking hanging lightly in the air above her palm. Moving the board aside, she laid her hands on his shoulders - on the kimono that she had made for him - and pushed him forward.

Silk whispered over skin as she oh so gently lowered the collar of the kimono over his shoulders, letting it fall down his back. The skin of his back was smooth and white, even paler than his face and arms which were exposed to sun and wear, but the muscles under it were firm and well toned. When her fingertips brushed over his skin it was as smooth as the silk had been, and made her palms tingle faintly. She was glad he could not see her blush; that was not only magic. It was unseemly for princesses to blush, let alone High Priestesses in the middle of a magical ritual.

"There is nothing to fear," she murmured. "Let the marking that was meant to end your brother's curse instead be the cure for your own. After all, wasn't that the second thing that you were searching for?"

The marking settled over Yuui's back in ripples and waves, and although she automatically reached to smooth them down with a bit of binding magic, it wasn't necessary. Without a seam the blank ink bonded to his back, the long curves wrapping around his shoulders and ribs and the tail trailing down his spine as though it had been made for him. And in a way, it had.

Yuui took a deep shuddering breath, and his blond head bowed as he raised his hands crosswise to clutch at his own shoulders. "It feels…" he said, and his voice was a bare whisper. His fingers spasmed tight, and his back shook. "It feels like him."

Now the tears did come, where before they had been blocked. Now Tomoyo did kneel behind him and put her arms over his shoulders; kiss his hair softly, and tell him it would be all right.

* * *

><p>~to be continued.<p> 


	3. The Last Thing

**Title**: The Third Thing  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Yuui/Tomoyo. Romance, sweetness, mild angst.  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: Post-series, spoilers for the Nihon arc.

**Author's Notes**: The Owara Kaze no Bon is based on a real event, but I've made some changes. Technically only trained dancers are allowed to perform, and the atmosphere of the festival is supposedly dark and melancholy rather than cheerful. But the important details - it's an autumn festival, which traditionally takes place after dark, and the dance is performed by unmarried men and women - are all from the original festival.

* * *

><p>Autumn in Nihon was the finest time of year, Yuui thought. He'd had time to see each of the seasons once - the two-year anniversary of his arrival here had passed not long ago - but he'd not been in a frame of mind to pay them much heed, last year. Now, entering into his third year of what looked like it was going to be a long stay, he made an effort to relax and enjoy it.<p>

Winter had been full of snow - astonishingly so, given that it never really got terribly cold. The pond of water out in the gardens had never fully frozen over, and no ice formed on the surfaces of the running streams and fountains at all. Still, despite that, the heavens had let loose with masses of soft wet snow - enough to bury the city in a muffled blanket of whiteness and to let Yuui truly appreciate the sharp peaks of the palace roofs.

Yuui was no stranger to the discomfort and boredom of winter - he'd been raised in a country much colder, after all - but he had eagerly anticipated the onset of spring. He'd been disappointed. Spring had brought with it incessant rainstorms and cold, blustery winds - trees sprouted blossoms and dropped them and unfolded their leaves all in the same chilly gray blur. By the time the spring weather had finally thawed and warmed, there had only been a brief period of warm, sticky weather before summer arrived.

Summer was the true test, for Yuui, that his bad luck was truly no longer a threat. Although he was still accident-prone - and the results if he tried to pick up a game of dice or _ching_ tiles were hilarious to all concerned - he no longer brought disaster. The second summer had seen no repeat of the harrowing drought of last year, no more terrifying storms. The differenc from last year had finally reassured some deeply buried anxiety in Yuui; and as his tensions eased, so too did the lingering effects of the curse.

Tomoyo still blessed him periodically - he'd protested that it wasn't necessary, but she insisted that she wanted to make him as lucky and blessed as he could be. Indeed, it was her determined kindness, as much as her practiced magic, that wrapped him in a warm, pleasant glow wherever he went within the castle. Past a year, now, and their friendship had only deepened. They had found, through long unhurried conversation, that they had much in common - perhaps not in their life's stories, but in their backgrounds, their tastes and interests, and of course, their magic.

Magic was hardly unknown in this world - nor had it been in Yuui's world - but there was a deeper connection that could be made between two master mages, that was difficult to achieve with anyone else. It came from a silent, shared understanding that there were greater forces in the world than anyone around them could see, let alone touch. It came from a common language - symbols and images and practices and principles of understanding - that transcended any mere barrier of word and syntax.

Yuui tilted his head back to gaze up into the darkening sky, and a soft half-laugh puffed past his lips. With the advent of autumn, the stifling humidity of summer had finally faded, and the sky was crystal clear, millions of stars gleaming in the velvet blackness. He had taken to joining Tomoyo, when she invited him, on the pavilion set up outside her chambers; it had an unparalleled view of the night sky. The moon, just edging past gibbous, shed a brilliant clear light that drowned out the stars around it; it hung low in the sky, inviting him to stretch up one hand and touch it. In all its beauty and mystery it reminded him of Tomoyo herself.

Princess Tomoyo did not merely practice magic; magic was a _part_ of her, part of her identity and her life. She _was_ the Tsukuyomi, the one who read the stars and guided her country and people through the deep unknown paths of darkness, and it left its mark on her. Beyond the part of her that was _here _ - a slender, lovely young woman with shining hair and a gentle smile - there was a part of her that would forever belong to those clouded forces. Yuui could see it, and understand it… and he respected it, despite the sadness that lingered inside his heart. She belonged to her magic, and she belonged to her land. However good friends they ever became, she would always be out of his reach, as much so as the distant moon.

Yuui lowered his hand and sighed, shaking his head and chuckling ruefully at his own thoughts. The night was wearing on, and Tomoyo would be wondering what was taking him so long.

* * *

><p>"Oi! Fluorite-san!" A cheery voice rang out at him across the hallway, and Yuui turned in surprise to see Souma waving vigorously at him. She was with a few other guards and another <em>kunoichi;<em> from their playful demeanor, he gathered they were off-duty tonight and on their way to some entertainment.

Souma separated herself from her companions and bounded gracefully over to his side. He had become very familiar with the warrior in his year here; she was not only one of the Empress' body guards, close as a shadow at every meeting, but also her bedmate. It had somewhat bemused Yuui to see the ease with which the court accepted the arrangement - but then again, with the force of Kendappa's fierce personality behind it, he didn't see that they had much choice.

"Souma-_san,_" he greeted her politely in return. There was still some confusion, in the fiercely hierarchy-minded atmosphere of the court, as to what Yuui's exact rank should be. As an outsider he ought to have none at all, but his quite evident power and proximity to the High Priestess made him a force to be reckoned with all the same. Yuui continued to muddle the issue by addressing everyone politely, even the chamber servants, and eventually people just gave up on trying to correct him. "You're in a good mood. Have plans for the evening?"

Souma laughed, tossing her dark hair behind her as her white teeth flashed. "You could say that!" she chortled; then she leaned into his personal space, draping a dark arm over his shoulder, and he began to suspect from the tinge on her breath that she'd already begun drinking. "What about you, huh? Heading up for another night of _stargazing _with the Princess?"

She accompanied this with a wink and a solid dig at his ribs, leaving Yuui feeling somewhat confused and indignant. He wasn't sure what she was trying to imply. "Yes, we should have an especially fine view tonight," he said uncertainly. "Altair and Vega are rising, and we hope to catch a glimpse of the sixth planet before dawn."

"Oh - _planets,_" Souma said with an exaggerated eyeroll. "By dawn I bet neither of you will be thinking much about looking at the stars any more, huh? There are better kinds of 'heavenly bodies' much closer to home." She gave him a cheerful leer, and this time he could not mistake her meaning.

His body stiffened, and with a slight movement he pushed her arm off his shoulder. "It's nothing like that," he said in a tight voice. "I promise you there's nothing inappropriate going on. It's just _stargazing. _The Princess enjoys a companion while she is reading the heavens, that is all."

"Ehh?" Souma's voice turned heads up and down the corridor as she gaped at him incredulously. She must have already drunk quite a lot, Yuui thought with a wince, and tried to disentangle himself from her grabbing arm. "You telling me that you guys aren't playing shepherd and weaver every night you're holed up there together?"

Yuui felt his face burn, and he gritted his teeth to regain control of his voice. "Don't assume everyone's motives are the same," he snapped at her. "The Princess and I are good friends - dear friends. But I would never dream of approaching her in an inappropriate way. I am well aware that she is far beyond my station, and sees me as no more than a companion in the course of her studies. You do not need to remind me of that!"

"Oh," Souma was staring at him with a look of stunned incomprehension dawning over her features. "Oh." She scrubbed at her face with the net sleeve of her leather tunic, then turned to look over her shoulder at her companions. "Look, you guys, go on and get started without me, will you? I think I need to have a talk with His Awkwardness here."

Still fuming, Yuui found himself pulled into a small, quiet side chamber; the only illumination was the lamplight of the corridors and the gardens outside filtering through the rice paper. "All right," Souma said once she had him alone. Her voice was still slightly unsteady, but the raucous drunkenness of earlier was not in evidence. "Now, there are a couple of things here that I don't think you understand. But to start with, where are you getting this idea that Tomoyo is above your station?"

The question confused Yuui; he stammered for a reply. "I… well… she _is_," he said helplessly. "My understanding was that the Imperial family is not just royal, but also sacred. She is princess, and also Tsukuyomi, the predominant priestess of your country's spirit. All I am is some wandering vagabond, a foreigner -"

"Don't tell me you've been listening to those useless layabouts in the outer chambers!" Souma scolded him, wagging a finger in front of her face. "The only people who care about their exalted bloodlines are the ones who have no greater achievement in life than being born in the right spot. And besides, you _were_ born a prince, weren't you?"

"Yes," Yuui said bitterly, and bent his head forward. He didn't like to dwell on thoughts of his home country, especially not when he'd found a true home here. "But they never wanted me - they cast me away as soon as they could."

"Never mind that," Souma dismissed his old pain with a brusque gesture. "The point is, you _are_ of royal blood, which automatically makes you equal or better to any of those simpering twits. And if it's a question of what you've done with your life and talents since then, why, you've got a list of accomplishments that would make any Taoist master groan with envy. You have no reason to feel inferior to anyone here, and we're damn glad to have you, let me tell you that.

"And besides, what does any of that matter?" Souma added as Yuui drew a breath, preparing to remind her of his cursed luck. "When the Royals choose a companion, nobody else gets to tell them no. Look at me! Sure, my family's technically noble, but we're so far down on the ranks that I'd never be allowed to stay in court without a sponsor. But Kendappa -"

The dark woman stopped abruptly, and her sharp face was softened by a smile that transformed her features. "Kendappa chose me," she murmured. "Out of all the soldiers and courtiers and suitors, she chose me. And neither of us have ever been sorry for a day of it."

"Yes," Yuui said quietly, humble in the face of her obvious affection. He smiled helplessly, lifting his hands in a half shrug. "But then again, I don't think anyone could tell Her Majesty 'no' on anything, once she's put her mind to it."

Souma laughed freely again. "No. Definitely not!" She fixed him with a stern gesture. "Tomoyo's the same, you know. She may act sweet and gentle when compared to her sister, but once she's set her mind on something, she doesn't let _anything_ get in her way. She's chosen _you,_ Yuui Fluorite. And anyone looking at you can tell you're mad for her. What exactly is the holdup here?"

"But it's not -" Yuui began in frustration. He ran one hand through his hair and sighed. "Even if that were true, it's not just… that simple. She's a _miko,_ isn't she? The High Priestess of Shinto. I thought her position required that she stay a maiden."

"Oh." Souma stared at him. Her expression wriggled uncertainly, as though she wasn't sure whether to laugh or to smack him. "Oh, jeez, there are a _lot_ of things you don't understand."

"Like what?" he snapped, aggravated by her callous attitude. "If I'm such an ignorant barbarian, then enlighten me."

"Look, relax, okay?" Souma took his arm and pulled him further into the room; their vision had adjusted enough to take in the sight of the low benches before they tripped over them, and she sat them both down. "It's a little complicated. Let's start at the beginning. You know what makes the Empress the Empress, right?"

He didn't think she was asking for a lesson in politics, not that he would have been qualified to deliver. "She's supposed to be descended from the Divine Amaterasu, right?" he hazarded. "That's why it's part of her title."

Souma nodded. "You can't underestimate how important that is," she warned him. "Every Emperor since the founding of our nation - over a _thousand_ years ago! - has been of the same bloodline. We're not like Chuukoku, who changes dynasties like they're trying on a new pair of sandals. The line goes back unbroken to the beginning. The Emperor may not always have held power, not in the political sense, but we've always been true.

"And the best way to _ensure_ that the line remains unbroken is to trace the descent from mother to child," Souma explained. "Oh, the Emperor is not always female - they're not all as tough stuff as Kendappa and her sister - but if the emperor has a sister, then the next heir will always be her child and not his. The throne always passes through the female line, as long as there's been a childbearing woman in each generation."

"That… I think I understand," Yuui said after a moment. It seemed a strange system to him; his home world had ruled by a strict patriarchy. But he supposed he could see, in a dynasty that valued purity of the bloodline above all, that they would not want to risk uncertainty about the line of descent. "But I don't understand what this has to do with Tomoyo."

Souma sighed, as though she were talking to an idiot. "Tomoyo and Kendappa are the only ones of their generation," she said, slowly and clearly. "And in the twenty years of her reign, _there has been no heir."_

"Oh," Yuui said.

He'd never considered it from that perspective before. It shifted Kendappa's relationship with Souma into a whole new light, and he looked at the sober expression on her face. His earlier comments about Kendappa not giving way to anyone's demands for any reason took on a whole new meaning now… but what would that mean for Nihon? "But - the Tsukuyomi is…?"

Souma shook her head. "It's not necessary for a priestess to be a virgin," she said bluntly. "Hell, a lot of the times in the outer provinces, the local clan lord ups and marries his priestess, and it works out all right. That's not the problem. The _problem_ is that when a woman marries, she becomes part of _his_ family. Either she'd have to give up her status to become part of his household, or he'd have to be adopted into hers; and most men don't want to be… diminished that way, becoming nothing but an accessory to their wife."

Privately Yuui thought if the men of Nihon really felt that way, then they deserved to miss out on every good opportunity that passed them by. But Souma wasn't done talking yet. "The Priestess doesn't have to be a virgin," she was saying, "but she _does_ have to be a maiden in the sense of… having a certain amount of autonomy, that would be hard for most husbands to accept. Because of that, it's widely felt that it wouldn't be appropriate to pressure the Tsukuyomi into marriage, when she'd taken no interest in any man at court. But… the truth is, we're running out of time."

"Running out of time?" Yuui's head jerked up, his mouth going dry and his heart pounding in response to her words. "Surely you don't mean -"

"No, no!" Souma waved her hands in front of her, negating his half-formed fears. "Nobody's sick, or dying, or anything like that. But we don't have forever, you know. Tomoyo's already past thirty."

"So?" Yuui said with some puzzlement. Thirty didn't seem very old to him, especially not to one whose aging was slowed by magic. He himself had lost track of his exact age years ago, but he knew he was at least fifty years old.

She shot him a look of exasperation. "_So,_ women don't stay fertile forever," she said in the same tone of exaggerated patience. "Kendappa is older by several years. If she doesn't give in to pressure to bear an heir in the next few years - and she _won't -_ then it's going to be all on Tomoyo. Sooner or later, the pressure on her to marry… or at least, to take a lover… is going to be immense."

"They couldn't," Yuui protested sharply, feeling an unaccustomed flare of anger buried in his indignation. "They wouldn't dare!"

Souma looked at him for a long moment, and her expression softened to something a little like pity. "You have to understand how important this is to us," she said in a quiet tone. "This is the future of our country here - the bloodline of the Sun Goddess is what makes us who we are. There _must_ be an heir, one way or another. If it's not you, Yuui Fluorite, it's going to be someone else."

A hot flush of blood flooded Yuui's face; he swallowed hard and tried to control it, mentally cursing the fair skin that made such displays of emotion impossible to hide. He wasn't even sure what all was in the hot and bitter mix in his throat; desire, want, jealousy, anger, indignation, mortified embarrassment. "I can't imagine anyone at court would consider me an acceptable… suitor," he said in a dry voice.

Souma snorted. "You kidding? At this point I don't think they care what _species_ the father is, as long as he's fertile." As Yuui choked, she added in a more serious tone; "Remember it's the mother's blood that matters."

"I see," Yuui said in a tight, strangled wheeze.

The last of the humor faded from Souma's face, and she came closer to put a hand on his arm. "Listen, I know this is a lot for you to take in," she said. "Take some time to take it in. And think again about what I said. When Tomoyo chooses, she doesn't let anyone stand in her way. But she's got to know _what_ to choose. And you don't have forever."

"I understand," Yuui said, after a long beat. He kept his face turned carefully out of the light, hoping that she would not be able to read his expression. "Thank you, Souma."

"No problem," she said. She stood up from the padded bench, all fluid grace and shadows in the dark. "I'm going to get on with my night off; I've lost half a bell already. You just think about it, okay?"

"I will," he promised, and he meant it.

* * *

><p>This year's Owara Kaze no Bon matsuri - the Festival of the End of the Winds - fell on the same night as the full moon, and precisely on the day of a confluence of planets. The conjunction of favorable influences meant that this year's celebration was the largest in fifty years. For the occasion, rather than staying up in Shirasagi palace and attending a private ceremony there, Kendappa and Tomoyo had decided to walk the streets of Kyoto to enjoy the celebration.<p>

The presence of the Empress and High Priestess in the town threw the festival planners into a frenzy, and the result was a flurry of lights and decorations that were truly astonishing. Music and drums trilled from every corner, and the shopfronts and even the street itself had been scrubbed clean. Enticing smells wafted out from bamboo stalls hawking traditional festival foods - grilled meat, fried dough, glazed honey and _mirin_.

All in all it was a fine night; a sharp night breeze reminded partygoers of the impending winter, but Tomoyo was bundled in enough heavy layers of kimono not to feel the chill. Her companion, too, was enjoying the night; a bright pink glow showed in his cheeks and nose as his breath fogged out in a laugh. Yuui Flowright had never been to a matsuri such as this one before, and the bright sparkle in his clear blue eyes brought a fresh charm to the old, familiar sights.

Their party had separated from Kendappa's some time ago; now they fetched up in the main square, with the attendants and guards clearing a comfortable space in the crowd for them, in order to watch the dancers. Colored lanterns hung from the eaves, lighting the whole town in a soft steady glow; brighter lanterns and braziers had been set up around the elevated platform where the professional dancers performed the Dance of the Winds.

"The costumes are beautiful," Yuui remarked; Tomoyo nodded agreement, although the couturier in her couldn't help but notice in disapproval some clumsy stitches, a few clashing or poorly chosen colors... Well, the costumes were part of the tradition, she supposed. "But why do they wear those strange hats?"

The hats in question were woven of straw, and they were of a typical triangular design except that they tilted low over the dancer's face, shadowing their features completely from view. "It is to hide their features from the eyes of the gods," the High Priestess answered. "The festival was first developed hundreds of years ao when deadly typhoons threatened the country. The people devised this festival and this dance to appease the gods and abate the storms, but they hide their faces so that no ill fortune will be able to find them. The dancers have to rehearse before each performance, so that they do not offend the gods by a slip or a stumble which could bring storms back upon them."

"They're amazing," Yuui said, awe echoing in his tone. "So graceful, every move in step... How long do they have to practice, to move so perfectly together?"

Tomoyo couldn't help but smile. "I do not know," she said. She turned to Aki, the maid who was helping her manage her heavy garments. "How long do the dancers usually practice? Do they stay the same from year to year?"

"Some of them are," Aki replied, "but they have to keep adding new ones as they lose some of the troupe."

"Oh? Why is that?" Yuui said, turning towards her curiously.

The maid tittered. "Well, the dancers have to be unmarried, you see," she said with a sly grin. "It's traditional. They say that it's a way to try to entice the gods' favor by displaying comely young men and women, but personally I think it's mostly an excuse for comely young men and women to show off to each other."

"In that case, you and Wizard Flowright ought to be up there dancing, shouldn't you?" A familiar, cheerful voice cut into the conversation; startled, Tomoyo turned to see her sister, accompanied by Souma and her gaggle of bodyguards, strolling casually across the square. Kendappa smiled dryly at the two of them. "Since both of you are currently unmarried."

Yuui's cold-reddened features blushed even further. "Ah, no, we couldn't..." he stammered. "I don't know any of the steps, and besides, only the official performers are allowed to participate..."

"Oh, officially, sure," Souma said with a roll of her eyes. "But once you get away from here the streets are just chock full of young couples practicing their own little Dance of the Winds. Give it a try, why don't you? You never know, the gods just might decide to grant you a blessing!"

Tomoyo felt her own face heat; combined with Souma's grin and wink there was no mistaking what kind of 'blessing' she had in mind. She chose to ignore the insinuation, instead addressing her sister. "Are you heading back to the palace now? Or will you be staying out for longer?"

"We will be returning soon," Kendappa replied, "but there's no rush. No one will be in any state to conduct business until afternoon tomorrow, so I intend to simply grant the whole palace a holiday."

"A wise idea," Tomoyo said with a mischievous grin. "We will be staying out some time longer, I think. Yuui has never had some of these common festival foods, I thought I would give him the opportunity."

Yuui shot her an inquisitive glance; Amaterasu just nodded regally and strolled on by. Once her entourage was out of hearing Tomoyo closed the distance to whisper in Yuui's ear. "Actually," she said in a low voice, "I've never had a chance to try some of these foods either, but it's unseemly for an Imperial Princess to take food from a street vendor, so I was hoping you could share some with me."

Yuui laughed. "I think we can work something out!"

The street vendors refused to take payment, hastily offering the best of their wares with effusive and elaborate compliments. Yuui and Tomoyo strolled on through the lantern-decked streets, munching on snacks. The food certainly wasn't as subtle or elegant as that produced the palace cooks, Tomoyo decided, but it was hot in the cold air and had a straightforward sweet and savory taste that was as delicious as anything more elaborate.

"Will this festival really go on all night?" Yuui asked, turning his head left and right to take in the singing townsfolk on street corners.

"For some, it will," Tomoyo answered, "but I suspect most of the celebrating will die down around midnight. They had planned -"

A sudden cacophony interrupted her, and the skies over the town lit up with bursts of colored light. Brilliant fireworks exploded above them, intermingled with deafening cracks and pops of strings of fireworks going off. A roar of cheers rose up from the streets, and a second wave of fireworks followed the first.

It took Tomoyo a stunned moment to regain her senses, and she found that Yuui had leapt close to her and grabbed her in his arms. His clutching grip slowly relaxed, and he turned his face down from the smoky sky and smiled at her sheepishly. "Forgive me," he said. "The sudden noise and lights, I thought -"

Tomoyo meant to ask what he had thought, but her throat was suddenly dry and her heartbeat thumped heavily in her chest. Yuui's face lit up in flashes of green and gold, red and white, each flash illuminating his features from a slightly different angle. His arms were still around her, and in the next moment, he leaned down and pressed his lips lightly against hers.

For two heartbeats, three, they stood in that tableau with the lights flashing and smoke drifting about them. Tomoyo didn't know how to react. At last Yuui sighed and straightened up, his warm hands leaving her shoulders. "Forgive me," he repeated softly. "I should return to the palace now. Tsukuyomi, I apologize for burdening you with my feelings."

He turned and walked swiftly away. "Yuui-san -" she called out, stepping after him; but he did not turn back, and in her cumbersome robes she could not possibly match his pace.

"What just happened?" Aki asked, sounding as confused as Tomoyo felt. Still staring after the departing wizard, Tomoyo shook her head.

"I'm not sure," she said. "Let's go back."

* * *

><p>By the time she returned to the palace, Tomoyo had some time to think over the confusing events of the night. Yuui had apologized for burdening her with his feelings; exactly what kind of feelings were they? She knew that he valued her as a friend and colleague, as she did him in turn. There were some bonds that could only be appreciated by a fellowship of magic. Did he also care for her as a husband for a wife, a man for a lover? She couldn't be sure; the warmth of his arms around her suggested yes, but the soft brush of his lips said no.<p>

That light touch was more of a gesture of a parent to a child, not of a man to a woman. Was that how Yuui felt about her? Fatherly? She felt disappointed and a little bit angry at the idea; he might be older than she in years, but she was certainly no child!

She was getting nowhere by supposing, Tomoyo decided; the only thing to do was to call on Yuui and ask him about his intentions. She stopped only briefly in her own quarters, changing out of the hot and stifling formal kimonos into something more suitable for indoor wear, before heading through the darkened hallways towards Yuui's chamber.

The festival was far from over, and most of the palace's inhabitants were still partying down in the village. It was very quiet and peaceful in the castle, uncommonly dim since most of the lanterns had not been lit. The only light in the hallway glowed through the paper-frame panels and spilled under the door from Yuui's room; here was one person who was not celebrating.

She rapped on the wooden frame of the doorway. "Yuui-san?" she said crisply. "I would like to come in."

There was a moment of silence, of hesitation; Yuui didn't really have the right to refuse her entry, although it would be discourteous of her to enter without his permission. "Come in," he called at last, his voice muffled.

As Tomoyo slid the panel aside and stepped through, Yuui scrambled up from the low table where he'd been doing some writing, and bowed before her. "Your Highness," he said softly. "How may I be of service?"

Tomoyo frowned at him; she did not like this sudden retreat into subservient formality. "Well, for a start," she said tartly, "You can explain yourself."

Yuui stiffened, the lamplight playing over his features as he shifted slightly backwards. "About what?" he said, his voice reserved. "If it's about this evening's impropriety, I apologized -"

"Yes, you apologized for 'burdening me with your feelings,' as you said," Tomoyo interrupted him. "But I am by no means burdened; indeed, I feel quite at a loss, because I do not think I understand exactly what those feelings are!"

Yuui blinked, startled, and his mouth fell open. "I - I beg your pardon, Your Highness?" he stammered. "I meant - well - when I kissed you, I felt that -"

"Kissed?" Tomoyo frowned; the word had a stiff, unfamiliar feeling in her mouth. "Was that supposed to mean something, Yuui-san? I invite you to explain, because I am growing increasingly perplexed by this whole situation."

"Oh." Yuui took a step backwards, and sat down rather suddenly on one of his chairs. "Pardon me, Princess, I did not mean to cause such confusion. Do the people of Nihon not - kiss each other, to show their feelings?"

"The touch of mouth? That is what you call a kiss?" Tomoyo probed for confirmation. Yuui nodded, and Tomoyo considered it, then slowly shook her head. "I would not say so, not as a meaningful gesture. A parent, a mother might do something like that to a child, but it is certainly not something that adults would do. I was hardly expecting such a gesture, and certainly not from you."

"Oh." Yuui's voice sounded a little choked and strangled, and he put a hand up to cover his face; but around his splayed fingers, Tomoyo could clearly see the reddening flush of his face. "What a fool I was, to assume that the same gesture would have the same meaning in every world -! But this place has become so familiar to me, these past few years, that it completely slipped my mind…"

Tomoyo studied him through narrowed eyes. She rather suspected she knew where this was going, but she had to be sure. "Yuui-san, what is a kiss among your people?" she prodded him.

He cleared his throat and lowered his hand, but he would not look her in the face, his bright eyes flicking from corner to corner. "I beg your pardon," he said again. "In my home world - the world where I grew up - a kiss is meant to… signal romantic passion, usually between men and women. It is - it is considered a signal that a man feels deeply for the woman he loves, and that he wish - wishes to form a bond of marriage, or… at least of physical attraction."

"So that is what you were trying to tell me earlier?" Tomoyo said slowly. "You were trying to signal that you wished to start an affair with me?"

"No!" Yuui burst out hurriedly, the deep blush overtaking his face again. "Nothing - nothing so crude, my lady, I swear. I wasn't thinking anything clearly at all, in that moment… you were just so beautiful, and I was moved to tell you so. A kiss is - a spontaneous kiss like that is - I don't know how to explain it any better," he said helplessly. "In my world, it just _is._ Everyone understands it, so there's no need to explain."

"I see," Tomoyo said. A deep, satisfied warmth was beginning to glow in her chest and stomach, and she felt the sudden mischievous urge to tease him. She looked at her Yuui - her guest, her friend - with a bright spark in her eyes. "Well, Yuui-san, I must say I don't think much of your world's traditions."

His eyes jerked back to her face, and the blood drained away from his face so quickly that she was surprised he didn't pass out. "In Nihon, if one wishes to tell a lady that she is beautiful, one does so in a proper way," she continued, "with poetry and - if one is so inclined - music. And we certainly have better ways of initiating _romantic passion,_" she turned his own phrase back on him with a teasing drawl, "than simply smushing two pairs of lips together."

Yuui sat there, stunned and speechless, for a long moment. She folded her arms in her sleeves and smiled demurely at him, waiting for him to make the next move. She saw half a dozen trite and obvious questions - _are you serious, do you mean it, is this just a joke to you?_ - form and fade on his lips. "Well," he said at last, when he'd gotten some control over his voice, "I can't speak for all of them, but most the ladies of my home world certainly seemed to think it was quite enjoyable."

"Really? I can't see how," Tomoyo teased him. "Of all the most delightful places on the body, I would hardly rate the lips as worth spending much attention on. Nor can I see how such a light, inattentive brush of skin could be very satisfying."

Yuui stood up, and _at last_ closed the few yards of distance between them. "We'll see about that," he murmured. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his embrace, and _kissed_ her again.

This time it was no uncertain, chaste press of lips. He pulled her flush along the line of his body, his warmth glowing palpably despite the clothing between them, and his mouth bent to hers with full attention. His lips were no longer soft, but a firm and insistent heat, coaxing her own lips to part and run his tongue along inside them. The tantalizing contact sent unexpected sparks of pleasure through her, as though her mouth were full of fireworks, and ignited the warm glow inside her into an excited flame.

"Oh," she breathed softly, when at last their lips parted enough to allow a cool breath of air between them. "Now I think I see."

There were still fireworks bursting over the village, the distant roar of celebration, as they sank slowly together towards the floor, still locked in an embrace. In the semidarkness they kissed again, passions rising, and she guided his hands to the more difficult fastenings of her kimono.

"Tomoyo," he said, whispering her given name at last. "You know I - this isn't just about passion, it's - I have loved you for a very long time but I never believed -"

"Hush, Yuui," she said tenderly, splaying her fingers across his parted lips. "I have never loved anyone the way I care for you. You know, if you had been a little less shy, all this could have been yours long ago."

"If _I _ had been less shy? Why did _you_ never -" he began indignantly, and Tomoyo giggled. She couldn't help it; the sound bubbled out of her as though she were still a girl.

"This was the third thing, you know," Yuui said at last, hours later when the noise of celebration had finally dwindled into silence. Even so, his voice was barely audible in the quiet of the room; if her head had not been pillowed on his collarbone, she wouldn't have heard him at all.

"Hmm?" she roused herself to say, glancing up into the shadows of his face.

"The third thing I sought across all the worlds, but never truly believed I would find," Yuui confessed quietly. "The one thing the Witch told me could heal me, of my curse and all the old pain that went with it, and the one thing I was certain would always be beyond my grasp."

"What's that?" Tomoyo said drowsily.

He shifted around, partially sitting up and reaching between them to cup her chin in his hands.

"Someone to love me," he breathed, and kissed her again.

* * *

><p>~the end.<p> 


	4. Epilogue: The Unexpected Thing

**Title**: The Third Thing  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Yuui/Tomoyo. Romance, sweetness, mild angst.  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: Post-series, spoilers for the Nihon arc.

**Author's Notes**: This storyline will be continued in a new fic, covering Fai and Kurogane's return to Nihon from their travels, as well as Fai and Yuui's reunion. I decided to split it into its own story because it didn't really match the pace or tone of this one (which was mostly about Tomoyo and Yuui.) So for everyone looking forward to seeing Kurogane's reaction when he finds Yuui and Tomoyo together... don't worry, it will come!

* * *

><p>It was not quite true to say that Tomoyo had never regretted giving up her dreamsight. It had been her true gift, a rare ability granted to only a few among millions, and it had allowed her to steer her country and her beloved ones towards safety and happiness for many years. The Witch of Dimensions would not have been able to take it as a price if it were not truly valuable, nor if its loss had not hurt.<p>

But she had accepted the loss, and the hurt, and continued with great grace. Indeed, for all the wrench to lose that certain sight, it was also somewhat of a relief - all dreamseers knew too well the pain of being able to see the future, but to be unable to act on it to change anything. Freed of that burden, she had contented herself with the lesser foretellings of her position; the star-gazing and auguries that most priestesses relied on. And for years, that had been enough.

Now, though, she sat in the Tsukuyomi's sanctuary and gazed upwards at the sky, and wished with all her heart that she could have her old powers back - for a day, or maybe just for an hour. Three days ago she had left the comfortable routine of her old life and stepped into something new. Something that she had always known, abstractly, that she would have to do, but never seriously given thought to before.

She was going to become a mother.

Not soon - not even within the next year. The auguries that she _had_ managed to perform warned her that conceptions would be rare between them, in part because of the strong magical abilities that slowed aging for both of them. But sooner or later, children would come. And Tomoyo was assaulted by a whole new battery of fears and questions that she had never, in all her visions, dreamed that she would need to ask.

_Will my children be born healthy?_

_Will the fact that their parents are from different worlds cause a problem?_

_Will they be cursed?_

_Will they inherit our magic?_

_Will the country accept them as heirs to the throne?_

_Will the sacred bloodline of the Sun Goddess run truly in them?_

_Will the people come to love them as they love us?_

_Will they live to take the throne? _

_Will there be war, plague, storms, some catastrophe that I cannot foresee, that I cannot help them with?_

_Will they thank us for bringing them into this world?_

_Will my children be happy?_

Not all of her powers as the Tsukuyomi could bring her the answers to the storm of questions within her; no matter how long and hard she gazed at the stars, they returned only dark nothingness.

A step on the floor behind her brought her attention down from the sky, and she turned and smiled as her lover ducked through the door.

"Yuui," she said softly, foregoing the honorifics that had always been a mark of formality between them. He smiled at her, a rare true smile that was concealing nothing, and held out his hand as he came towards her. She captured it in her own, and pressed his palm against her cheek.

"You've been in here for hours," Yuui said, a note of gentle teasing overlying real concern. "I wasn't sure I wanted to interrupt whatever was holding you so spellbound."

She smiled in return, and shook her head. "Just woolgathering," she said. "I can see nothing clearly, tonight. Perhaps I am asking all the wrong questions."

"Questions?" Yuui prompted her.

Tomoyo hesitated, then sighed. "You know," she said. "For all that I knew, in a corner of my mind, that someday I might marry and bear children… it never seemed real to me, not until now."

To her surprise, Yuui chuckled. "You're still one up on me there," he said, and there was an unsteady note in his voice that made her look more closely at his face. His blue eyes were shadowed, his mouth tight with strain. "I never dreamed it was possible at all. And if even the possibility had presented itself to me, I would have…"

Run away, Tomoyo finished for him silently. She could never understand how much that urge was a part of him, how hard it was for him to stay in place every day, but she knew that it was true for him.

"Because of my curse, you see," Yuui continued. "I was scorned by my family, cast out by my people, I wandered alone for years… I could never stay in one place for long enough to meet and fall in love, let alone consider… children. It would never have crossed my mind to bring new children into such a life, where they would always be hurt and rejected by others. Never until I came here, until I met you…" His eyes met hers, and he managed a small smile for her.

Tomoyo nodded; for all her anxieties and fears, she understood that his ran much deeper, tempered by his early trauma and grief. "But you are safe here," she prompted him gently. "And so will they be."

He sighed softly, and pulled her into his arms; a loose, warm embrace, more for comfort than for passion. "It was a gift I never thought I would be given," he said. "A wholly unexpected thing - not something I ever sought. But… for all my fears… I am not sorry to receive it."

For the first time in her life, Tomoyo truly did not know what the future held. But as her lover led her out of the door and into the moonlight, she did not fear it.

* * *

><p>~the end (for now!)<p> 


End file.
